Category: Africa
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Levy Gorvy Dayan presents Abdoulaye Konaté: Lune bleue
Lévy Gorvy Dayan is thrilled to announce its first New York exhibition with Malian artist Abdoulaye Konaté, opening January 16, 2024, at the gallery’s landmark Beaux-Arts-style townhouse. Abdoulaye Konaté: Lune bleue presents richly chromatic, monumental works that unite investigations of form and color with symbolic references drawn from a…
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Coming to West Harlem
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair announced details of the 2023 annual New York edition, following the notable success of last year’s return to an in-person fair event in Harlem. The 2023 iteration will take place at Malt House in the Manhattanville Factory District, 429 West 127th Street, from Thursday, May…
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The movement of Cecilia L Botchway
Cecilia Lamptey-Botchway is a Pan Africanist performance artist, sculptor, textile designer and a painter: Cecilia sees the African metaphysical universe as the inspiration for her paintings. Her art largely reflects her interrogation about Womanhood, Blackness and the Divinity of the African woman! As an active participant at the Ouidah…
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Straight from Ghana
Foster Sakyiamah (b. 1983, Ghana) is an emerging contemporary artist based in Accra, Ghana. Instantly recognizable for their vibrant color palettes and preponderance of curved linear patterns, Sakyiamah’s paintings are celebrated as exuberant portrayals of the people and culture of Ghana. Sakyiamah’s affinity for patterns comes from his interest…
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Chidinma Nnoli debuts in Chelsea
Read a recent article in the New Frame about the artist Chidinma Nnoli. The first paragraph described her work as poetry. And when you view her work, it’s very evident. There’s a quiet beauty to her paintings laced with layers of flowers and layered to provide texture. To see women…
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PR$DNT HONEY
All of the women that Nemakhavhani portrays are bold and defiant—certainly not afraid to occupy a public space. From textile, art direction, illustration and photography, Rendani Nemakhavhani has been stunning us with her sensibility and style. Her illustrations and textiles are remarkable, orginal and punch you with flavor. For years,…
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John Muafangejo Printmaker
Although he produced a number of tapestries and paintings while at Rorke’s Drift, Muafangejo is known almost entirely as a printmaker; his linocuts are also particularly well known. In this respect, Azaria Mbatha (qv.), who favoured the medium, influenced Muafangejo as did many other artists who studied at Rorke’s Drift.…
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Artist Johnson Ocheja
Johnson Ocheja, born 1994 in Kogi, Nigeria. He currently lives in Cross-River State, Nigeria. He graduated from Kogi State University with a bachelor’s degree in statistics. He is a self-taught artist inspired – as he says – “by my environment, the beautiful and colourful people around me and some of…
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Rising Ghana
Featuring Annan Affotey, Aplerh-Doku Borlabi, Lord Ohene Okyerebour, Adjei Tawiah and Crystal Yayra Anthony, exhibition 18 (Rising Ghana) is a group presentation of five key emerging contemporary artists. Telling a story of self-expression and community driven support that extends out of Ghanaian domesticity and onto the world stage—the names in this…
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Lunga Ntila FEMINIST ARTIST
My feminism looks like freedom; it is opinionated and unapologetic — Lung Ntali LUNGA NTALI emphasises intersectionality, sexuality and femininity as important foundations regarding her storytelling and work. At her core, she is a truthful artist who encourages difficult but necessary conversations that speak to marginalized people. She manages to…
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Meet Ekene Maduka
Ekene Emeka-Maduka, born 1996, was raised in Kano, Nigeria, before moving to Canada as a student. She now lives and works in Winnipeg. Ekene’s practice is an on going study of the “self”. It is an exploration of individuality and self-representation that translates her experiences to viewers who may or…
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Looking at Meschac Gaba
Meschac Gaba (born 1961) is a Beninese conceptual artist based in Rotterdam and Cotonou. His installations of everyday objects whimsically juxtapose African and Western cultural identities and commerce. He is best known for The Museum of Contemporary African Art 1997–2002, an autobiographical 12-room installation acquired and displayed by the Tate…
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MEET SELLY RABY KANE
Selly Raby Kane is a renowned Senegalese fashion designer and artist involved in Africa’s booming art and design movement. Kane is an interesting case study to grasp fashion’s involvement in Africa’s current debate surrounding identity and empowerment through innovation. This article discusses Kane’s designs in light of her contribution not…
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Annan Affotey and his ‘Red Eye’ Paintings
Annan Affotey was born in 1985 in Accra, Ghana. After graduating from Ghanatta College of Art and Design winning Best Student of Still Life, Best Imagination and Composition, and Best Abstract Drawing awards, Annan joined the Revolution Art Organization and displayed his work in several group and solo exhibitions…
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Nigerian artist Uchay Joel Chima
“I enjoy spending quiet moments observing nature and my environment, exploring shapes, colours and designs.” Since graduating from the Art School of the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu, Nigeria in 1997, Uchay Joel Chima’s artwork has continued to evolve, remaining relevant to developments in contemporary art. Weaving a tapestry…
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CONTEMPORARY ARTIST OMAR BA
Omar Ba is a contemporary Senegalese artist known for his mixed media paintings which fuse figurative and decorative motifs. Ba’s surreal scenes of violence and fantasy investigate despotic warlords of the present, traditional folklore, colonial oppression, and the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. The artist has said that his work is…
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Top African artists Alida Rodrigues and Ibrahima Thiam
Alida Rodrigues was born in 1983, in Cabinda, Angola, and lives and works in London. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art, at The Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London, in 2007. In 2014 she had her first solo show at the Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim, in Norway…
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INTRODUCING SOUTH AFRICAN PHOTOGRAPHER TONY GUM
Gum’s presentation, “Ode to She,” is a timely reflection on her own experience as a Xhosa woman. Her work is rooted in the tradition known as intonjane, where a young girl evolves physically and spiritually through the many stages of her native culture. In her young 20s, Gum is certainly…
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BASKET CASE II
ARTISTS Ifeoma Anyaeji, Delaine Le Bas, Alexandra Bircken, matali crasset, Tapfuma Gutsa, Sebastian Herkner, Michel Paysant, including collaborations with Eric Gauss and Justin Langlands. WEAVING COMMUNITIES Binga Craft Centre, Bulawayo Home Industries, Lupane Women’s Centre, Zienzele Foundation, STEP Trust CURATORS Raphael Chikukwa, Chief Curator, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Christine Eyene,…
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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT COLLINS OBIJIAKU
Collins Obijiaku is a young, up-and-coming artist from Kaduna, Nigeria. His work is a celebration of blackness through elegantly constructed portraits. Gazing at his paintings is to be transported into a world where black people exist for themselves, innately elegant and unfazed by the world and its never-ending problems. There…
